And when pried up and lifted away--a snugly fitting trapdoor about two feet square--there yawned beneath it, leading slantwise downward in the direction of the street, a tunnel through the soft yielding sand, braced and strengthened here and there with lids and sides of cracker-boxes. "Now, if you don't mind straddling a fence, sir, I'll show you the other end," said the captain, imperturbably leading the way, and Canker, half-dazed yet wholly in command of his stock of blasphemy, followed. At the curb, right in the midst of a lot of loose hay from the bales dumped there three days before, the leader dislodged with his sword the top of a clothing box that had been thickly covered with sand and hay--and there was the outlet. "Easy as rolling off a log, colonel," said old Cobb, with a sarcastic grin. "This could all be done without a man you've blamed and arrested being a whit the wiser. They sawed a panel out of the floor, scooped the sand out of this tunnel, banked it solid against the weather boarding inside, filled up the whole space, pretty near, but ran their tunnel under fence and sidewalk, crawled down the gutter to the next block out of sight of the sentries, then walked away free men. Those three thieves who got away were old hands. The other men in the guardhouse were only mild offenders, except Morton. 'Course he was glad of the chance to go with 'em. I s'pose you'll release my sergeant and those sentries now." "I'll do nothing of the kind," answered Canker, red with wrath, "and your suggestion is disrespectful to your commanding officer. When I want your advice I'll ask for it." "Well, Mr. Gray will be relieved to learn of this anyhow. I suppose I may tell _him_," hazarded the junior member, mischievously. "Mr. Gray be ----. Mr. Gray has everything to answer for!" shouted the angered colonel. "It was he who telephoned for a carriage to meet and run those rascals off. Mr. Gray's fate is sealed. He can thank God I don't slap him into the guardhouse with his chosen associates, but _he_ shan't escape. Sergeant of the guard, post a sentry over Lieutenant Gray's tent, with orders to allow no one to enter or leave it without my written authority. Mr. Gray shall pay for this behind the prison bars of Alcatraz." CHAPTER VIII.